7 ideas
| 7085 | The main problem of philosophy is what can and cannot be thought and expressed [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The 'Tractatus' concerns the theory of what can be expressed by propositions (and, which comes to the same thing, can be thought), and what cannot be expressed by propositions, but can only be shown; which, I believe, is the main problem of philosophy. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919]) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This contains what a I consider the heresy of making thought depend on language, but his main question remains, of the limits of thought. It is dramatised nicely in the 'mysterian' view of the mind-body problem (e.g. Idea 2540). |
| 20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He said that dialectical arguments were like spiderswebs: although they seem to indicate craftsmanlike skill, they are useless. | |
| From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.161 | |
| A reaction: Useful for the spider, but useless to Ariston. |
| 23463 | Atomic facts correspond to true elementary propositions [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Atomic fact [Sachverhalt] is what corresponds to an elementary proposition [Elementarsatz] if it is true. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919], CL 125) | |
| A reaction: This is perhaps the key to the Tractatus, because it is the binding point between world and language. A true realist would allow for atomic facts that may go beyond even possible propositions. |
| 23490 | A thought is mental constituents that relate to reality as words do [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Does a Gedanke [thought] consist of words? No! But of psychical constituents that have the same sort of relation to reality as words. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919], p.125), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 4B | |
| A reaction: This is roughly my view of propositions, as non-lingustic mental events. The 'psychical constituents' seem to be concepts, in a psychological rather than a Fregean sense. This idea allowed transfer of his representation theory from thought to language. |
| 3049 | The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The chief good is to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice. | |
| From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.2.1 |
| 3549 | Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Ariston says that rules are useless if you are virtuous, and useless if you are not. | |
| From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.4 |
| 5994 | Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning. | |
| From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out. |